Best ADSL router(s) for bandwidth management/traffic shaping/QoS?

Toffe3m4n

Toffe3m4n

Toffe3m4n

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Hi everyone, long time shopper on Overclockers & been registered on these forums for just over 4 years - this is my first post! :D

Anyway, I'm in the market for a new ADSL router but one of my main priorities is to get one with some pretty robust bandwidth/traffic/QoS management features as we have a pretty busy home network here. Lots of devices all doing different things at the same time!

I currently have a DGN2000 which has served me well for a few years but the QoS feature on it (which I was only able to unlock via a firmware update anyway) just flat out doesn't work. Even with game traffic given a high priority, streaming media absolutely dominates the network regardless. What I'm looking for is a solution that will allow me to shape bandwidth between different devices on the network fairly comprehensively.

I've heard that certain DrayTek, Billion, & newer TP-Link devices offer decent solutions but I need some solid input from other SoHo network buffs & people with first hand experience. Could you guys help?

Cheers in advance :)
 
The only one imho that works with QOS is Gargoyle - it takes a bit of setting up but it's QOS for ADSL is second to non. Billion's is very poor in comparison - I had a Billion before I set up Gargoyle. With this solution you do need a modem as well

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18351858&highlight=gargoyle

Out of interest a lot of QOS which doesn't work anyway locks your bandwidth regardless who else is on, Gargoyle makes use of it depending on who is on and it does work
 
I don't know what Draytek are like for home routers but their firmware for their "semi-commercial"(Got the DrayTek Vigor 2860n on one of the broadband lines in work) line has some great QoS via specific users or ranges

What tals said is going to be cheaper for you most probably.
 
Is that firmware compatible with any ADSL routers though? I looked at the 'Supported Routers' page on the website and I couldn't see an ADSL router listed.

EDIT: Actually, I think I'm getting mixed up. Is the idea to get a standard Gigabit router, flash it, and use an Adsl router as a modem to bridge them?
 
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That's it, with adsl it works because it monitors the line and always ensures the qos has capacity.

No other router that I am aware of does that
 
Sorry misread, get a standard adsl modem, or you can convert some netgears into a modem which is what I did, don't use a adsl router as a modem per sec
 
Wouldn't go mad on QoS unless you have very limited downstream bandwidth. Aslong as you have a reasonable amount of downstream bandwidth and have QoS setup to not let any one application use more than 90% of the available upload bandwidth you will rarely see too much problem even with online gaming. If you have significantly under 8mbit/s downstream you may find that reducing the priority of streaming media rather than increasing the priority of gaming traffic has a more noticeable improvement for gaming but you could end up with very poor streaming media results depending on other factors.

However if someone is doing something like torrenting with high connection cycling even QoS can sometimes be of little use :|
 
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You've not used gargoyle then? I purchased a billion router as my gaming was suffering made no difference. In desperation I posted on the billion forums and people put me onto gargoyle. I put on gargoyle, I had an 8mb line and couldn't work out why gargoyle was pushing the line down below 2mb, basically it highlighted a fault in the line. I now have around 15mb and have a family all having our streaming and the network rarely breaks a sweat. You are correct that most qos solutions will not work as the downstream doesn't stay static. Gargoyle is different as it actively adjusts your downstream so the qos has the capacity required. Some good information on the web site re qos.

You are wrong re benefit, any speed of line will benefit as most apps will try and take as much as they require, particularly Netflix etc
 
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Looks like I'll have to give the Gargoyle solution a try. Think I'll hang on 'til next month now though, apparently my exchange gets the fibre switch-on in March so I want to see what happens there first.

Thanks for the feedback so far :)
 
tals said:
You are wrong re benefit, any speed of line will benefit as most apps will try and take as much as they require, particularly Netflix etc
Click to expand...

Never really seen it myself since moving away from 2-4mbit downstream connections (where even web-browsing would knock gaming latency into the 100s of ms) aslong as we stopped stuff saturating the upstream on 8Mbit ADSL even someone streaming netflix wouldn't have that big an impact on playing say Quake Live and now on FTTC it takes a lot to have any impact on game traffic (other than torrents).
 
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